Craft: Beth Bentley

Beth Bentley (1921-2021) was a poet from Seattle who taught in public school gifted programs, and served as Poet-in-the-Schools for Tacoma Public Schools and Lake Washington School District. She was born and raised in St. Paul, and received her BA and MFA in creative writing and English from the University of Michigan, but lived in Seattle from 1952 until her death.

Bentley founded and directed the Northwest Poets; Reading Series at the Seattle Public Library, where it ran from 1960 to 1974. The Reading Series became the Castalia series at the Hugo House.

Bentley in 1949: “She moved among men, married / one of them. In the garden / she spoke in a low voice and / was answered, earth humming / between her fingers, stems / sussurant”

Bentley’s poems use myth, mysticism, and passionate syntax to explore topics like family, the ways the natural and mystical bend around each other, and the invisible recognized as consciousness. Many of her images are reflective and become self-reflective: mirrors, ice, surfaces that have changed.